I'm just glad people can stop misspelling his name now.
I think it's a solid move, as I like Ross's upside more than Ranaudo's.
I think it's a solid move, as I like Ross's upside more than Ranaudo's.
Anthony Ranaudo dealt to Texas for LHP Robbie Ross
- Thread starter Laser Show
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flymrfreakjar said:
It looks even worse when you plot balls/strikes against the true strike zone for 2014 (the zone outside of which there's a more than 50% chance of being called a ball):
Even with Webster and RDLR gone, Renaudo was eminently tradeable...the PawSox rotation remains crowded and the Sox still have a more-than-reasonable collection of plausible major leaguers pitching in the high minors.
What's significant to me is that, while Renaudo wasn't a top end trade chip, he was cashed in here against a relatively minor acquisition (a second LHR). I like the trade as per Red(s)Hawk's analysis above, but Ross isn't exactly Hamels/Cashner/Cueto/etc. Renaudo was never going to land those top-end options, of course, but he seemed like a great third prospect in a potential four-prospect package. Maybe a sign of a lack of progress in any notion of developing a package for a high end starter.
What's significant to me is that, while Renaudo wasn't a top end trade chip, he was cashed in here against a relatively minor acquisition (a second LHR). I like the trade as per Red(s)Hawk's analysis above, but Ross isn't exactly Hamels/Cashner/Cueto/etc. Renaudo was never going to land those top-end options, of course, but he seemed like a great third prospect in a potential four-prospect package. Maybe a sign of a lack of progress in any notion of developing a package for a high end starter.
If the Sox didn't trade Ranaudo for a reliever, they would have had to acquire a reliever on the free-agent market. I don't think any decent relievers failed to get at least two years on this year's market.
So the deal isn't just AR for Ross; it's AR for Ross and payroll flexibility in 2016 and beyond. I'm still not in love with the deal, because I do think we gave up the more valuable asset (though not by a wide margin), but I can accept that the deal was probably one that BC felt he had to make.
Edit: I should note that I'm assuming the Sox feel there's no chance Ross will develop into a starter. I suppose it's possible that Ross is ticketed for the Pawtucket rotation and/or to compete with Wright for the shuttle role (6th SP), and Workman is bullpen-bound for good and might work his way into a 7th/8th inning role with a strong spring.
So the deal isn't just AR for Ross; it's AR for Ross and payroll flexibility in 2016 and beyond. I'm still not in love with the deal, because I do think we gave up the more valuable asset (though not by a wide margin), but I can accept that the deal was probably one that BC felt he had to make.
Edit: I should note that I'm assuming the Sox feel there's no chance Ross will develop into a starter. I suppose it's possible that Ross is ticketed for the Pawtucket rotation and/or to compete with Wright for the shuttle role (6th SP), and Workman is bullpen-bound for good and might work his way into a 7th/8th inning role with a strong spring.
Yeah, and it's hardly clear that Ranaudo is a better bet to turn into a quality starter than Ross. I mean it's true that Ross will probably end up in the bullpen until and unless we need another starter but if starting depth becomes an issue, I'm more comfortable giving Ross a shot as a starter then Ranaudo anyway.
Once a prospect hits 25 or so you've got to either give him a job or cash him in for some kind of value. By 26 or 27 hrs not a prospect any more, he's a journeyman.
(Posted that before maufmans edit)
Once a prospect hits 25 or so you've got to either give him a job or cash him in for some kind of value. By 26 or 27 hrs not a prospect any more, he's a journeyman.
(Posted that before maufmans edit)
Ross' development wasn't as smooth as Ranaudo's. He was jumped from High-A to AA at age 22, but then jumped to the majors next season and pitched exclusively out of the pen for 2 seasons before he got a shot in the rotation last year. He had some good games, so I think there's talent there, but his development may have been stunted a little by the aggressive promotion and bullpen usage.
At age 22, Ranaudo had 9 starts at Portland in an injury filled season and then repeated the level the next season until promoted to Pawtucket in 2013. Then he spent most of last year with the Paw Sox before getting his shot in Boston.
He could have potential in the rotation if it's necessary. At worst, he's a good bullpen arm. It'll be interesting to see what they decide to do with him. I don't think it's out of the question he spends the beginning of the season in Pawtucket seeing if he's got potential as a starter.
At age 22, Ranaudo had 9 starts at Portland in an injury filled season and then repeated the level the next season until promoted to Pawtucket in 2013. Then he spent most of last year with the Paw Sox before getting his shot in Boston.
He could have potential in the rotation if it's necessary. At worst, he's a good bullpen arm. It'll be interesting to see what they decide to do with him. I don't think it's out of the question he spends the beginning of the season in Pawtucket seeing if he's got potential as a starter.
I don't think Ben would have traded Ranaudo for Ross if the plan was to have Ross starting in AAA. We already have a full complement of starters there, including LHs. I think they expect Ross to compete for a spot in the Sox bullpen.
maufman said:
Cherington swapped almost all of his spare rotation parts (RDLR, Webster, and Ranaudo) for buy low previously successful bounce back candidates (Miley and Ross). Hannigan is the perfect complement for Vazquez until Swihart pushes them. Cespedes was an expiring contract spare part swapped for a proven ML starter (Porcello) not yet in his prime who was available only because he is entering his last year before free agency. Masterson was simply a buy low free agent as was Breslow. Hanley and Panda were available top targets to bolster last year's awful offense. All of this occurred with their premium 2015 protected first round draft pick and all of their top prospects still preserved. Not every acquisition will work out but the rationale for these moves is understandable. Of course, if almost all of these newcomers fulfill their potential, this coming season will resemble 2013 a lot. The bottom line for me is that Cherington's parameters for how and when he acquires outside talent show the same discipline that he displayed when not paying above what Lester was worth for him. It also explains why, for now, JBJ is still with the team. I still have visions of, if JBJ recovers his offensive potential (as another bounce back player), a long term defensive outfield of Betts, JBJ and Castillo will be the most athletic OF for the Red Sox since before WWI. This is somewhat off topic except to point out that one of Cherington's philosophies seems to be not to pay too much for too long to anyone in the bullpen.
PrometheusWakefield said:
Despite my edit, I do think Ross is tagged for the bullpen -- he might go to Pawtucket temporarily if Britton impresses in Spring Training, but I don't see him starting games at either the MLB or MiLB level, except as an emergency stopgap.
"Challenge" trades are rare -- it's unlikely that the Sox and Rangers swapped developmental SPs, which is clearly* what Ranaudo is. It's much more likely that they exchanged a guy with past success as a major-league reliever (Ross) for a minor-league SP who has a chance to develop into a major-league starter, but has a somewhat larger chance of turning into nothing at all (Ranaudo).
*-If the Rangers thought AR didn't have a chance to develop into a starter, they wouldn't trade a guy with demonstrated success as a reliever for him.
The Boomer said:
QFT.
All the acquisitions made sense and preserved the future. Also just to add to your comment about Hanley and Panda: it wasn't an accident that those were the two they went after. They acquired two top FA at the teams two least productive positions in 2014.
iayork said:
I have no idea whether this is true, but one possible hypothetical explanation of this could be that Ross is wild in the zone. For instance, if catcher sets up outside and he misses on the inside corner, perhaps the catcher lunging to make the catch causes the umpire to call it a ball.
This one can be traced back to the tremendous influence of Menudo on us 40-somethings, right?P'tucket said:
I wonder how much of this has to do with the grounder rate? Enough has been said about the tendencies of the new rotation, but is Ross' worm-killing a coincidence or some belief on Ben's part in a synergy that could exist by throwing one ground-baller after another, and so it's worth having a few in the bullpen too? Or more simply does Ben believe that Boston's IF defense will enable a bounceback? Texas' defense features Beltre, and Andrus is average, so maybe this is a wash. Odor's dWAR wasn't good last year, and Prince Fielder submitted a good six weeks of shitty D at 1B too.
chrisfont9 said:
It disturbs me how much I think this is true and I think I would have preferred never to hear of this notion.
chrisfont9 said:
I don't think you have to go any further than that ground balls lead to fewer runs than line drives and fly balls. According to this (http://www.fangraphs.com/library/pitching/batted-ball/) line drives will get you 1.26 runs per out, fly balls will get you 0.13 per out, and ground balls 0.05 runs per out. And sure, strike outs are close to 0.00 runs per out, but strikeouts, while increasingly common, are also probably a lot more expensive than ground balls. Also, as someone pointed out here a couple months ago, that big wall in left field inflates the runs/out of fly balls in Fenway so ground balls are even more important here than elsewhere.
I don't know if that covers their interest in Ross, who succeeded, and then didn't, by inducing grounders, but I do think this basic fact played into their evaluation of Ranaudo.Rasputin said:
Rasputin said:
High OBP going back to Billy Beane's original Moneyball strategy no longer constitutes a market inefficiency that can be exploited.
OTOH pitchers with high GB rates look like the current market inefficiency that Cherington has identified. This is particularly true because the cost per strikeout with it's 0.00 runs per out is so much more than the cost per ground ball with its 0.05 runs per out. Despite the Green Monster effect, a good defensive outfield with, for example, Betts, JBJ and Castillo might get you better than 0.13 outs per fly ball - maybe even almost the same rate of outs as usually averaged for ground balls. With their speed, they would also drive down the rate of outs per line drive. Likewise, a really good infield can improve the average outs per ground ball to much closer to outs per strikeout.
The cost savings is huge. How much more is it worth to assemble a rotation made up of proven strikeout artists averaging $20 million or more per season per pitcher? Not enough to justify what the Sox rotation, of all still in their primes starters with their high ground ball rates, will cost for what they produce at less than half the average price for more strikeout dependent pitchers.
Earlier in the winter, many assumed that the much improved offense would make up for average or mediocre pitching. If these ground ball pitchers are as effective as they've been when previously at their best (almost all except for Porcello were better in previous seasons than last year), the team's overall improved performance might be equal to or better than the most optimistic predictions.
The Boomer said:
The first bolded point is what I was trying to say.
The second bolded point is something I very much agree with.
I think the pitching staff has two things really going for it in addition to the fact that they're mostly pretty good pitchers.
1) We have some really good catchers who are not just good defensively, but good at getting more strikes called than average.
2) The defense--particularly the infield, but the outfield too--should be pretty damn good. Bogaerts is certainly nothing special defensively at the moment, but the guys at all the other positions have excellent reputations and Bogaerts is only going to get better in the near term.
We know that a lot of what we think of as pitching is really defense, well, we should have a defense that makes our pitching look better than it might otherwise be.
Also, we're gonna score a buttload of runs.
Maybe two buttloads.
I don't think I understand the line of thinking with regards to ground-ball pitchers and market value. With OBP, it was the under appreciation of how OBP, relative to other traditional measures, related to run creation. With pitchers, their ERA, or other more predictive measures such as FIP, etc., tells us all we need to know about their performance related to run giving. If ground-ball pitcher (A) has a 5.00 ERA/FIP/Whatever, and strike-out pitcher (B) has a 4.50, the later is more valuable, right?
edit: unless you think you have a great fielding infield relative to their former team. I don't think that is the case here.
edit: unless you think you have a great fielding infield relative to their former team. I don't think that is the case here.
I think the argument would have to be that including GB% along with other measures of pitching ability would improve predictability. In other words, if you look at ten pitchers with the same mediocre ERA (or FIP or xFIP or whatever stat you like), would the ones with the highest GB% be most likely to perform better in subsequent years?dbn said:
I don't know the answer, but possibly Ben does.
I think the theory is that GB pitchers are benefitting from the falling strike zone, which will be further enhanced by our catchers.
That's a theory put forward by some on SoSH, but it doesn't really make as much sense as you'd think. Groundball pitchers don't necessarily pitch at the bottom of the zone (where they'd benefit from Vazquez framing). Porcello, for example, throws most of his stuff in the lower half of the zone, but not so much right at the bottom. Miley has more right at the bottom of the zone, but not so low that he really needs extra help. (Examples: http://sonsofsamhorn.net/topic/87069-sinkerballers-and-the-sox-defense/?p=5786018)PrometheusWakefield said:
dbn said:
There are a number of things to consider. First is the concept of "market value." It's not a perfect relationship between "contract price" and the "ability to win baseball games (AWBG)."
The market bears what it bears. The contract price of quasi-premium players can be impacted by a couple of teams thinking they can win (and driving up prices in bidding wars). Or a couple of teams flush with cash (Dodgers). Or a random scarcity at a position. Or random scarcity of an ability. Or a new theory everyone is buying into. Or changed playing conditions (strike zone). And that's assuming a cold blooded "AWBG-only" approach.
In addition to AWBG, there are other sources of value such as big names for a team's marketing campaign, length of player contracts relative to your farm system's ability to generate prospects, whether or not a player's "character" will mesh with the specific team you've construted, etc. These soft concerns won't show up in advanced stat lines, but may make a lot of sense in terms of how you construct a roster.
**
As far as the Sox go, it may be that the FO sees something about GB pitchers that looks particularly good, given Fenway, the new strike zone, their new catchers, or some idea Farrell has for to develop/exploit guys with stronger GB tendencies. So GB pitchers might have unique game-winning value to the Sox.
We just don't know. Personally, I don't think the GB pitcher focus is a new kind of "secret weapon." If we had Iglesias clones at 2B and SS, maybe.
More likely, it just made sense to sign these individual pitchers for a number of reasons. The overall budget, available in trade, short contracts, potentially singable players, rehab projects, guys who "fit" on the club, etc. It's not like the Sox had an infinite number of options to pick from. Perhaps the fact that the new GB crew aren't high SO pitchers helped in making them available at what the Sox considered a fair price, compared to the other options out there (Hamels, Lester)
Rovin Romine said:
I'm assuming it's >90% about Fenway, about the reality that the park significantly increases the run value of outfield fly balls. It might be more useful to think of the Sox' strategy as signing low-FB pitchers rather than high-GB pitchers, though it comes to the same thing. These pitchers are more valuable to the Red Sox than to most teams, and therefore they will tend to be good bargains for us at market rates. It might not be any more complicated than that.
I would argue that every pitcher could use extra help, whenever they can get it. The theory isn't that Porcello, Miley, etc. are going to have some huge revelation in their numbers because they live right on the bottom edge of the zone, it's that they do tend to pitch in the lower half to lower third. Every pitcher misses his spots from time to time, but if even a handful of misses low in the zone where hitters can't really achieve a positive outcome anyway are converted from balls to strikes by the lower strike zone league wide and Vazquez' framing that can have a big impact on a game.iayork said:
The move to ground ball pitchers is most likely built on a multitude of factors. First and foremost is probably, as others have mentioned above, Fenway's dimensions and the inflated value of fly balls derived from those tight confines. Another factor is likely that the Sox feel they have a good all around defense, so ground balls are 1. unlikely to make it through the infield and 2. if they do are unlikely to find a gap resulting in a double/triple. Making teams advance one base at a time is a good way to keep runs off the board. Third, the club likely sees real value in both Vazquez' pitch framing and his ability to control stolen bases. He was something of a phenom at getting low called strikes, and if a team gets forced into a game of singles he really hurts the opposition's ability to play small ball and steal or sac bunt for bases thanks to his strong arm.
If I recall the expression used by managers in the past correctly: Win 2/3rds of your games at home and half of them on the road and you're probably making the playoffs. Well, the Sox can help that along by making Fenway a very friendly park for the team they put together.
It used to be you could gain a competitive advantage by exploiting insights like "getting on base is good" and "pitchers who throw strikes, miss bats, and keep the ball in the park are better than those who don't do those things." Today, the available advantages are much smaller, so BC's big bet on groundball pitchers isn't likely to yield a commensurately big return. And BC knows that. We're spending a ton of time analyzing a strategy that probably won't be worth more than one win over a 162-game schedule. (Not that that's a problem -- there's not much else to discuss until pitchers and catchers report.)
maufman said:
This might be true. However, how many more wins per season would a $125-$150 million rotation made up of only pitchers comparable to Lester, Hamels and Scherzer be worth during the course of a season? Nobody (maybe not even the Yankees) can afford this and have significant funds left to sufficiently field their regulars, a bench and a bullpen. The Tigers, after this season, might only have Verlander and Sanchez anchoring what is left of their rotation with Scherzer, Price and Porcello already or soon to be gone. Ground ball pitchers still represent as close to a market inefficiency as there is now because good ones can probably provide more or less than 75% (I'm guessing) of the performances of aces at an average annual salary of less than half of what fireball hurlers now cost.
This is what I think. Perhaps some teams haven't figured out, "park- adjusted xFIP" and that makes pitchers like Miley and Porcello relative values compared with pitchers who have the same park-adjusted xFIP but fewer GB and more K's. If it works for the Red Sox this year the market inefficiency will wane and they'll have to look for a new one.The Boomer said:
Love this trade. Ranaudo wasn't ever starting a game for us this year at age 25 only blocking one of the rotation slots in Paw. Ross already has a role on this Red Sox team. Trading an expendable piece with had no role with your team, and limited upside, for a guy who can help you right now and still has some upside. No brainer imo.